An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days'_Reform
Opposition to the reform was intense among the conservative ruling elite, who, condemning the announced reform as too radical, proposed instead a more moderate and gradualist course of change. With the tacit support of the political opportunist
Yuan Shikai and the backing of conservatives,
Empress Dowager Cixi engineered a
coup d'état on September 21, 1898, forcing the young, reform-minded Guangxu into seclusion. The emperor was put under
house arrest within the Forbidden City until his death in 1908. Cixi then took over the government as
regent.
The Hundred Days' Reform ended with the rescinding of the new edicts and the execution of six of the reform's chief advocates, together known as the "Six Gentlemen" (戊戌六君子): Tan Sitong, Kang Guangren (Kang Youwei's brother), Lin Xu (林旭), Yang Shenxiu, Yang Rui (reformer) and Liu Guangdi. The two principal leaders,
Kang Youwei and his student
Liang Qichao, fled to
Japan to found the
Baohuang Hui (Protect the Emperor Society) and to work, unsuccessfully, for a constitutional monarchy in China. Another leader of the reform,
Tan Sitong, refused to flee and was arrested and executed.
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